in: the mother to whom he was spiritual physician, director, and
guide; the gentle and silent daughter who was his wife; flaming over the
Continent and through all the troubles in Scotland with these
incongruous followers behind him, then coming back to drop the two tame
sparrows in the quiet nest which their mother had left for love of him!
All we know of them is that in their early childhood he did not spare
the rod; yet was grieved to see them weep. It would be strange if it
were not a disappointment to him, if perhaps a relief as well, to find
no sympathy in his sons for his own career. The daughters whom the young
wife of his old age brought him lived to be like him; which it is said
is the only good fortune in paternity likely to so great a man.

[Illustration: MORAY HOUSE, CANONGATE]

When Knox emerged out of the silence which here falls so strangely upon
his life (broken but by one energetic protest and appeal to the
community against the re-erection of the bishopric of St. Andrews, which
is full of all his old force) he was a weakened and ailing man, not less
ready in spirit to perform all his ancient offices as standard-bearer
and champion, but sadly unable in body to bear the fatigues and
excitement of such an agitated life. He reappeared in public for the
first time when the infant James was crowned in Stirling, preaching the
sermon which preceded that melancholy ceremony. He then returned to
Edinburgh, where for a brief period he saw the accomplishment of all his
desires under the Regent Murray's government: the mass banished; the
Kirk re-established; a provision, though still limited to a third of the
old ecclesiastical property, securely settled for the maintenance of
religion, and every precaution taken for the stability of the
settlement. He was no longer able to take the part he had done in the
affairs of the time and the guidance of the Assemblies, but he was still
able to conduct, at least, the Sunday services at St. Giles's, and to
give his strenuous advice and help in all the difficulties of
government. It must have seemed to him that the light which comes at
eventide had been fully granted to his prayers. But the death of Murray
changed all this like the end of a happy dream. His sermon in St.
Giles's, after that terrible event, is a wail of impassioned
lamentation. "He is at rest, O Lord! but we are left in extreme misery,"
he cries, his grief redoubled by the thought that it was he who had
proc